Google Reveals Futuristic Augmented-Reality Glasses

The technology is not quite here yet, but it's not entirely Sci-Fi either

Google's HUD glasses will probably not end up looking like this, this is just a design study

Google has made it official, the HUD glasses that have been rumored for a while now are real. While they're not on sale yet, they are now being tested by Google employees, in public, and may become a reality faster than you'd expect.

Don't get your hopes up too much though, the video and the photos you see are just concepts, not any actual product.

"We think technology should work for you—to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don’t," several Googlers part of the, until now secret, Google[x] project, wrote.

"A group of us from Google[x] started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment. We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input," they said.

"So we took a few design photos to show what this technology could look like and created a video to demonstrate what it might enable you to do," they added.

While the potential for a device of this kind is quite interesting and, if done right, it could prove a welcome reprieve from technology and far less unintrusive than smartphones for example, Google is not quite there yet.

Basically, the photos show how Google would want the glasses to look like and the video shows how it would want them to work. Those two goals are in opposition, getting a device powerful enough to do everything in the video in such a small package is no small feat.

In addition, while most of what you see in the video is possible, few things actually work so well. Google Maps is great, but it's far from perfect and Google has only now started to add interior data to it.

Likewise, voice-recognition is good, but it's not perfect, as Siri-owners will attest. What's more, natural language processing is considerably harder than it's made to look in the video. Still all of this exists today, the technology just needs to be improved. Give it a few years and your Google-powered glasses will do much more than what you see in the video.